Landing the Curiosity rover on Mars was a big feat for NASA, but we could not have done it without the work of small businesses.

On Wednesday, Sept. 19, NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden is joining Administrator Karen Mills of the Small Business Administration for a Google+ Hangout with ATA Engineering, one of the small businesses that made the Mars Science Laboratory mission landing a success.

Google+ members and reporters are welcome to join the discussion from 10:30 a.m. to 11 a.m. EDT Wednesday. Administrators Bolden and Mills will talk with representatives of ATA about their work to design and analyze the design of the entry, descent and landing process – known as "Seven Minutes of Terror" – as well as other systems operating the Curiosity rover.

You can join in the conversation on Wednesday by submitting your questions in the event comments below and on Twitter using the hashtag #AskNASA.

Otherwise, come back to the +NASA page on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT to watch the Google+ Hangout.﻿

Check it out: Hangouts with Olympic athletes, compliments of the Times. Visit their G+ page to see who else they're hosting. (Don't miss their clever G+ tagline: "The New York Times: All the News That's Fit to +.")

Attention N.B.A. and Olympics fans: On Wednesday, July 11 at 6 p.m. Eastern time, we are collaborating with Google to host a special G+ Hangout right here with +Carmelo Anthony and +Chris Paul of the New York Knicks and the Los Angeles Clippers, respectively. Mr. Anthony and Mr. Paul will join us from Las Vegas, where they're training for the 2012 U.S. Olympics basketball team. Do you have questions for them about their road to the games in London or their careers in general? Please post them below or share them with the hashtag #London2012Hangout ; selected questions will be answered during the Hangout. You can add this event to your calendar here: http://bit.ly/Mjb6Zv﻿

The page is 100% devoted to Google+ itself: breaking stories, notable people, business strategies, newly rolled-out features, and so on. Oh, and it belongs to me, and to my new digital marketing company, CloudClicks.

As you'll see if you click over, the number of people who've circled or plus-one'd CloudClicks so far is ... drum roll, please ... three. Not a knock-your-socks-off number. But, everything starts somewhere. And three isn't such a terrible number.

* Three is more people than worked for Google until 1998.* Three is more people than caused all that trouble in the Garden of Eden. * Three is more people than wrote most of the best songs in music history.

Four, though, is also a very nice number ...

Anyway, if you have any interest in joining my fan club for the Google+-obsessed, by all means, come on over.

Kristin

** The prediction was made by Paul Allen on his Google+ page on Dec. 27th, and spread like wildfire to all sorts of media outlets, all the way up to the New York Times. Using a very unique method, Allen calculated that Google+ will reach 400MM by the end of 2012. http://bit.ly/vH6pxy﻿

In India on Tuesday, our doodle marks the 160th anniversary of India's first passenger train, which made the journey from Bombay to Thane on April 16, 1853. Today, India boasts one of the largest rail networks in the world, with millions of passengers a day. ﻿

Google’s results are getting even more deeply intertwined with Google+. New links are now showing under results that show “Actively Discussed On Google+.” The link is expandable and brings in Google+ ...

Hey everybody - I started a digital marketing company recently, and along with it a Google+ brand page that's totally focused on .. well, Google+: news, trends, stats, creative things companies are doing with their brand pages, and other fun content about the new social network, of which I'm a big proponent. If you want to circle it, and chat about future posts, it's here. Hope to see you :) Kristin﻿